Huntley: A Mason Family Country House — John Shaqi
Huntley: A Mason Family Country HouseWrenn, Tony P.
History
Huntley: A Mason Family Country House
Wrenn, Tony P.
Huntley (Va.)
George Washington Air Junction Tract Found Ideal for Trans-Atlantic
Terminal for Airships of Zeppelin and R-101 types without
Interfering with Thousand-Acre Airport for Planes--Admiral Chester
Shows That Historic Ancestral Lands of George Washington and George
Mason, First Selected by War Department 12 Years Ago for Army
Aviation Field, Afford Only Tract Ideal for Great National Air
Center.
The "only ideal tract" was the valley in front of Huntley. Admiral
Chester was reported as saying that the War Department in 1916-17, made
an investigation:
... of all possible sites for an Army Aviation field near
Washington, and found that the Air Junction site was the only ideal
site for a large air center.
[Illustration: Figure 8. Hindenburg disaster, Lakehurst, New Jersey, May
6, 1937. Photo published in =New York Times=, National Archives print.]
Public Relations men for the Air Junction certainly used local history
as a promotional gimmick:
It will be a twentieth century aeronautic, scientific and historic
center, but retaining the gorgeous 18th Century pastoral setting,
including beautiful groves that teem with birdlife ... a dozen
bubbling springs that have been making for centuries the sparkling
Little Hunting Creek and Dogue Creek.... There are many other
alluring surprises that one would not dream of finding within only
nine miles from the Capital, such as Mason's poetic "Huntley," a
gem of colonial architecture, surrounded by stately trees. George
Mason's "Huntley" and "Okeley" are both part of the George
Washington Air Junction. These estates ... had been forgotten, due
to the lack of signs on the Washington-Richmond Highway to make
known that a modest lane led to them. The lane has now been widened
into a 50 foot gravel road and has become the entrance to the Air
Junction.
As the visitors drive into the Junction, past the historic Little
Hunting Creek, about 3,000 feet westward, they behold "Huntley," a
gem of colonial architecture, which graces one of the hills on the
north side of the Washington Air Junction Drive and overlooks the
Thousand Acres Airport. It is surrounded by stately trees, and its
sides are screened by vines and picturesque thick bushes of lilacs,
roses and other flowers.
"May I carry it away?" is the usual query from visitors, as from
the distance "Huntley" looks small enough to carry away. Failing to
obtain permission to remove this colonial gem, the visitors feel
happy in being photographed on the quaint porch and steps....
The writer had apparently convinced himself of at least one thing, for
under the photograph of Huntley, which accompanies the article, the
house is again called "a gem of colonial architecture."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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